27/02/05

Violent factions have taken up arms and are apparently closing in on Beyoncé after her decadent display of ex-Romanov family diamonds during her performance of that phantom d'opera song. gigantic diamond chandelier smashes into Beyoncé's thorax with every downbeat.... SIR ANDREW LLOYD WEBER? was he playing a grand synth-piano on the Glass Harp voice?

***mcMü & I might just be liveblogging the oscars!!! I don't even know what author I am logged in as, that is how collaborative this effort is!!!

Highlites & Impressions so far:

—Chris Rock's political riffing was chuckleful! In the pre-Oscar HISTORY OF CINEMA montage sequence, our viewing audience found fault with Dustin Hoffman's overly grave voice-over work (Haufmann?)—I REJECT DUSTIN HOFFMAN AS TOURGUIDE THROUGH THE HISTORY OF (AMERICAN) CINEMA.—If this website wasn't total shite then I would be able to tell you who won best director in '89 or '90 or whatever, and why Scorcese didn't win for Goodfellas, even if he wasn't nominated, so that The Pressure to Give Martin Scorcese the Best Director Oscar was not the pus-filled Mt. St. Helens we are experiencing at tonight's Oscars.—one of the only red carpet snippets I got to see featured Kristin/Kerstin Dunst (aka Dustin Kunst?) and her younger brother, who had frizzy blond bangs. He seemed ~20...I bet he gets to party a lot and meet young ladies and stuff!!! does he have beef w. gyylllenha'alal? —if there has not already been an NYT article about the growing importance of the Best Animated Film category, then please commission one now!

This list was culled today (Feb 25, 2005) between 11:00 and 11:40 am, from the computer I'm using to make this post. Is there some way to tell how many days' worth of searches this represents? I can't wait to fly home.

24/02/05

Fucked Tent-ier Tracey Emin has done her 1st piece of public art! It is in Liverpool and is called Roman Standard. It is a small bird that sits atop a 4 meter bronze pole! News coverage does not really clear up what exactly the bird itself is made of, taxidermied?, etc. please have your jokes [about the bird having everyone it's ever fucked engraved in tiny letters on its beak] ripped in half along w/ your tickets when you enter....

Emin said: "Since 1992 I have been making a series of drawings, etchings and prints of birds. I have always had the idea that birds are the angels of this earth and they represent freedom. My Roman Standard represents strength but also femininity. Most public sculptures are a symbol of power which I find oppressive and dark. I wanted something that had a magic and an alchemy, something which would appear and disappear, and not dominate."

this is a special, extremely tiny featurette called Dilettante's Romp, which presents a minature entree into a world beyond the scope of bulleted lists: An Economistarticle about Hugo Chavez indulges in mild scare tactics...but who really knows, or cares, or can accurately make the call?!? Do you guys know? Comentarios about media bias from informed followers of the Venezuelan press? Dilettante's Romp rules, maybe!?:

For half a century, American policy in Latin America has been dominated by the desire to prevent a "second Cuba". Some officials in Washington fear that is what is now emerging in Venezuela. They also worry that Venezuela may be soft on "narco-terrorism", and trying to export its "revolution" to the rest of the region. As a result, they want to isolate Mr Chávez.

...

Certainly, Mr Chávez's intentions are sufficiently ambiguous to warrant close scrutiny by South America's democrats. The United States this week dismissed claims by Mr Chávez and Mr Castro that it is planning to assassinate the Venezuelan leader. Any attempt to execute "regime change" in Venezuela—such as the failed coup in 2002 which the United States did not condemn—would be rejected in the region as the ousting of an elected leader. But whatever the neighbours say, rising tension between the United States and Venezuela will be a dominant theme in the region for the foreseeable future.

Most people would say just the model name of their car, right? "I drive a Camry."

Thanks to luck, I got an official girlfriend last week. We've dated three times so far. All three times, she drove us everywhere. She keeps mentioning the name of her car by its full name -- the brand, the model, and the two-initial extension tacked onto the model name. Is this her way of being coy?

I haven't said anything about it. She did it three, maybe four times during our first date -- saying the full name of the car. But we had so much fun that night, I sort of forgot about it. When she said the full car name again on the second date, I remembered. Now I'll never forget.

That first night together, we got really worked up talking about how great it would be to own one of today's fastest computers twenty years ago. You could have the computer in your den, and whenever someone visited, you could arrange the furniture and the evening so they'd get a good four-second peek in your den -- a partially obscured view of the amazing machine. They'd get just enough of a look to set their mind racing. "What kind of miraculous machine does he own?" There could be all kinds of jealousy and skepticism. You could trick people. You could have two different computers -- a 1985 one and the 2005 one -- and occasionally swap them out for one another, denying that you own both. When someone from 1985 who catches a glimpse of the 2005 computer asks to take a closer look, you could show them the 1985 computer and fake discomfort -- giggling, saying things like "I don't know what you think you saw. Could it have been the light, or the angle?" -- until they just drop it.

That first night, my now-girlfriend and I ate two large baskets of Red Robin french fries with loads of ketchup. It felt great, grabbing/stabbing single fries, swiping them in ketchup, popping them, and talking. I was vaguely sick to my stomach when she dropped me off at my house but I felt great. When I'm with her I feel like a food reviewer being brought back to a favorite childhood restaurant. I can't wait for the food and when I get it I'm actually gratified, not disappointed, and it makes me think I should quit my job as a food reviewer because I know I can't explain its greatness. To try to explain it would lead to tears and yelling. I'm not a food reviewer, though.

I asked her over an early coffee at Waffle House (date #3) whether she'd like to think of us as long-term and she said "I think I do already." I forget everything when I'm with her. When I'm not with her I can't forget about this way she talks about her car. Why do you think she does it? Do you know anyone who talks this way? Can we make it?

She says the full car name in a non-amused way. She doesn't think it's funny. I don't think it's funny. Can we live a life together full of moments -- just moments -- in which we are simultaneously non-amused in starkly different ways?

Here is our cabinet ad, enlarged to show detail. Stiller looks sorta blurry here but he's OK in print. The title of this post is a Tragically Hip lyric from TROUBLE AT THE HENHOUSE, their 1996/7 album. (I am fond of the Tragically Hip.) I'm coming home tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to it.

Right now I'm waiting for plates to be made for the cover of Cabinet 17. The cover image is an early 1960s photo of a guy looking into a funhouse mirror. The guy looks a lot like John C. Reilly, and he's distorted in a way that makes him look a little like a Frances Bacon pope painting. The issue theme is LAUGHTER. The logotype color was the last decision. I got a good night's sleep last night. I had one beer yesterday -- a LEFFE brown. I tend to like dark beer better, I guess.

This morning I had an amazing breakfast with my Stepdaughter, Tiffany. We went out to the Conch Breeze Diner, one of our favorite breakfast spots. I splurged and had a lobster omelette. Tiffany had the "Pinecone Scramble." It's a joke title, obviously -- they call it that I think because it has Rosemary and Pine Nuts in it. Tiffany guessed they called it that because of all the Pine trees near the diner.

I had three cups of coffee with breakfast. Tiffany enjoyed three cups of fresh squeezed orange juice. We talked about school and soccer for a while after we ordered, but we were quiet while we ate, and listened to a family at a nearby table. They were disgusting. They talked about spirituality like it was shopping, and they talked about shopping like it was spirituality. "Oh, she's a great meditation instructor. I've recommended her blah blah." "BathinSalt is the solution, but you don't use it -- you implement it." Tiffany talked about her boyfriend, Gram, who is going to college next year (Tiffany is still a junior; Gram Milliken is a senior.) He is going to Brown University, and plans on majoring in English Lit and Computer Science. One of his main interests is interactive fiction. One of those things where you see on the screen something like

You are in a field. There is a discarded tampon here.

and you type

>GO SOUTH

and it says

SOUTH OF FIELD
There are several discarded tampons lying in the grass here, south of the field. A MURDERED TEENAGER lies in her pyjamas to the south-east.

22/02/05

If you're writing an essay for someplace that allows essay titles that are puns, like the Village Voice for example, and the essay is about a sci-fi book that addresses 60s counterculture, rock and roll, but is also a tragic love story, you should call that essay SF SORROW to pun on umm the album by the Pretty Things and also SF as conventional shorthand for SCIENCE FICTION. And then there's "sorrow". Do it, someone!

21/02/05

Recently my boss absentmindedly got going on the subject of her first real crush – a “dreamy” Greek boy two years her elder. She hasn’t seen this guy in years, but every time she goes back to her hometown she manages to catch up with his father, “Mr. D”, the proprietor of the local Greek delicatessen.

As a hurried aside to her primary narrative of “a cute boy on a dirtbike” she mentioned that Mr. D is “quite a character.” His hobbies include the Bouzouki and meat sculptures, and for the next hour I doggedly pursued Mr. D’s website (failed google searches: “meat art”; “meat busts”; “schwarma sculptures”; “Mr. D’s meat”) with the hope that not only would I be able to purchase ouzo flavored candy, but more importantly that I would find a gallery of his Yeero sculptures.